But surely the idea that its leaves are the chief grace of a tree is a
vulgar one, on a par with the idea that his hair is the chief grace of a
pianist. When winter, that healthy ascetic, carries his gigantic razor
over hill and valley, and shaves all the trees like monks, we feel
surely that they are all the more like trees if they are shorn, just as
so many painters and musicians would be all the more like men if they
were less like mops. But it does appear to be a deep and essential
difficulty that men have an abiding terror of their own structure, or of
the structure of things they love. This is felt dimly in the skeleton of
the tree: it is felt profoundly in the skeleton of the man.
The importance of the human skeleton is very great, and the horror with
which it is commonly regarded is somewhat mysterious. Without claiming
for the human skeleton a wholly conventional beauty, we may assert that
he is certainly not uglier than a bull-dog, whose popularity never
wanes, and that he has a vastly more cheerful and ingratiating
expression. But just as man is mysteriously ashamed of the skeletons of
the trees in winter, so he is mysteriously ashamed of the skeleton of
himself in death.
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